If you are a New Jersey Driver, theres a whopping 95% chance that you limited your rights to recover damages for injuries sustained in an automobile accident through your own auto insurance policy.This limitation applies not only to you–the policyholder–but to all immediate family members (spouse, children, and step-children) living in your household.
We at Schibell, Minnie, and Kenton Law firm suggest you learn if you have unintentionally limited your rights on your auto insurance policy by checking to see if you selected the Limitation on Lawsuit (Verbal Threshold) option, or the No Limitation on Lawsuit (No Verbal Threshold) option.
You can do this by looking at your New Jersey auto insurance policy, or contacting your insurance agent, who can tell you over the phone whether or not you have chosen to limit your rights on your policy.
New Jersey auto insurance law requires the insured to make a choice between the two options. Turns out that a full 95% of all New Jersey auto insurance policy holders choose the Limitation on Lawsuit (Verbal Threshold) and in doing so severely limit their ability to bring a lawsuit for injuries sustained in an automobile accident.
Most auto policy holders undoubtedly choose the Limitation on Lawsuit (also known as no threshold or zero threshold) option because it saves them a small amount on their insurance premium.
But what they often don’t know is that this option drastically limits their constitutional right to demand fair and just compensation for injuries suffered as a result of someones negligence.
Protect Your Rights: Choose No Limitation on Lawsuit
A choice of Limitation on Lawsuit option, in truth, limits your rights. If you are injured in an automobile accident in New Jersey, your ability to make a claim for non-economic loss (or pain and suffering) will be controlled by either the “Limitation on Lawsuit” option or the “No Limitation on Lawsuit” option.
The limitation applied is that any severe, but not life threatening, injury would not be a recoverable personal injury damage under New Jersey Law.
Without this right to file a claim for non-economic loss against the driver who harmed you, there is no recourse to collect medical deductibles after being injured by a drunk or careless driver.
Anyone who’s chosen the Limitation on Lawsuit Threshold is barred from asserting claims for non-economic loss (for both themselves and all immediate family members) unless they meet at least one of six (6) types of injuries:
Death
Dismemberment
Loss of a fetus
Significant disfigurement or scarring (Note: Significant refers to the subjective view of an observer, and not the opinion of the injured person.)
Displaced fractures (Simple fractures do not satisfy the threshold unless they cause a permanent injury after healing.)
Permanent injury within a reasonable degree of medical probability, other than scarring or disfigurement (An injury is considered permanent when the body part or organ, or both, has not healed to function normally and will not heal to function normally with further medical treatment.)
No Limitation Option Saves You Money in the End
New Jersey drivers are often surprised to hear exactly what the Limitation on lawsuit means in the context of serious injuries incurred in an accident. Unfortunately, its only when they have been seriously hurt that the reality sets in.
Don’t limit a precious and valued right as an American citizen: your right to file a lawsuit for pain and suffering against someone who harmed you.
Although you will pay a little more for the No Limitation option, it proves to be well worth it for the protection it provides you or a family member hurt in a car accident.
In addition, this protection follows you if you are a passenger in a vehicle other than your own that™s involved in a car accident.
When you or a family member has been involved in a car accident your life stops and then changes from that day forward. The lawyers at Schibell Law have the experience one needs when faced with a life changing situation. Call 732-774-1000 when you need the guidance of an experienced law firm.
